


Awakening

by LunaUlric



Series: Cyber AU [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XV, Kingsglaive
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, F/M, cyber au, cyborg, holograms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-21
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2019-03-07 15:01:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13437285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LunaUlric/pseuds/LunaUlric
Summary: The world is a futuristic dystopia. Lucis and Niflheim are at war and they only have technology at their use. The King of Lucis initiates the Kingsglaive program wherein fallen soldiers are revived as cyborgs to fight into the war.Nyx Ulric, a member of the Galahdian militia, wakes up and he finds out that he’s not where he expected himself to be.(A Cyber AU drabble)





	Awakening

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is a drabble set in my [Cyber AU](http://annaoi.tumblr.com/post/169498327013/annaoi-cyber-au-glaives-are-fallen-soldiers) as posted in my main tumblr blog. This AU needs a lot of world building in the stories so this will be one of the drabbles I planned for it.

Pain was temporary. That much he knew after he felt the blast.

There had been a sudden push. No, not a push. More like something ripping his limbs from his body. He didn’t feel the massive parts of flesh turning into little pieces. He didn’t feel the bones shattering upon impact. There was just the heat. Skin scorching heat. But even with that he didn’t have the chance to scream.

To scream her name.

_Selena._

She was in the middle of it when the bomb fell. He couldn’t remember exactly why she was there in the middle of the road. She was running with him. They were running like the rest of the people who heard the sirens. And then for a moment, he glanced back and saw that she had stopped. Shouting at him. Pointing at the sky. And he looked up and saw what she saw.

The dark objects falling from the sky.

This was why the sirens shrilled all over their beloved town. This was why they were abandoning it. Instinct took over and he rushed towards her who still looked up while the bombs fell. She was at a distance. A chaotic crowd separated them.

Right before the first bomb hit the ground, she looked at him with those big frightful eyes. Her mouth moved, saying his name, calling out to him like she was that six year old kid again who searched for him when she fell on bicycle. Or that time when she cried home because another kid called her mean names.

Even now as teen nearing womanhood, she called him as she had when she needed her big brother.

“Don’t worry, I’m here.” he would say.

But how could he say it when she had uttered her very last words?

The explosion happened when he was still too far. And the next thing he knew was that he was on the ground. He was motionless. Not by choice. He simply couldn’t will his body to. Pain was there but it ebbed away as he grew cold.

She was dead. And soon he would be too.

So he looked up into the sky and spotted the blue beyond the smoke and the ship, before he closed his eyes one last time.  

.

.

.

“His heart rate is normalizing.”

“Good.”

“Do you think his body is rejecting it?”

“No.”

“Then what caused it?”

“A nightmare.”

Nyx could hear them loud and clear this time but he was still, for the lack of a better word, stuck. Just there, existing, floating, in the dark, but nothing was really happening.

He knew time had passed. Not sure how much time though because he could see absolutely nothing. Not even the voices told him how long it had been. Was the journey to the afterlife this slow? Why can’t he move? Why can’t he see? Who are these voices? Over and over, the questions swirled into his brain like soap bubbles sinking into the drain but never really entering into the circular abyss. Same goes with the images of Selena’s death. A torture in comparison. He saw it countless times before the voices had uttered clear words. Same details, same scared little sister. Same failure as a brother.

Maybe this was punishment. For what? That he didn’t know. Whoever was in charge of him going through whatever he was going through must’ve had a grudge. The only thing clear about this whole thing was the nightmare.

The voices were at it again.

“Vital signs are stable. He should be nearing consciousness now.”

“Make preparations.”

Preparations? Preparations for what? Why was he waking up? Isn’t he dead? 

There was nothing for a while before they spoke again.

“Mr. Ulric?”

He didn’t respond. He didn’t know how to.

“You can open your eyes, Mr Ulric.” the voice said, sounding wise and hesitant.

His eyelids felt so heavy that it took all of his strength to lift them. For the first time he saw a sliver of light, growing and growing. It was hazy at first but then, finally, the light revealed things. Objects. Faces.

A man wearing a white coat was standing in front of him. “Mr. Ulric, how are you feeling?”

Nyx eyes roamed around. He couldn’t help but notice how stark white the walls were. There was another man. He wore the same white coat but he carried a clipboard. He looked younger. The older man snapped his fingers in front of Nyx’s face as if to catch his attention.

“His optical response is normal.” he said.

Nyx brows creased. Nothing was making sense.

“Where-” He stopped. Somehow, he was surprised to hear his voice again. “Where am I?”

“You’re in a safe place.” the older man replied.

 _Safe…_   He knew the tone and the sentence well enough. He had said it before just like that, many times as a member of the militia in Galahd when he was rescuing people. Saying it was something like standard procedure for preventing panic.

Now, should there be something to panic about?

There was no way to tell so far. But the mystery of what he opened his eyes to was unsettling enough. He should keep calm for now and search for answers.

Then, he remembered the nightmare. If he was here, then maybe…

“Selena.” he blurted.

“No slurring. Vocal response is excellent.” The older man noted, not looking at him. The other scribbled on his clipboard in response.

Confusion overwhelmed Nyx. He eyed their white coats. They're doctors. Of course. They have to be. But something was amiss. Everything he saw lacked the comfort of a hospital.

“Selena.” he said again. “Where is she?”

The two men finally looked at each other after that. Worry etched on their faces but not for long.

“Heart rate picking up again.” The younger man warned.

Again they weren’t making any sense. Nyx ignored the confusion and he asked again, this time with a more demanding tone.

“Where is she?”

The young man continued scribbling. The older man finally faced him and frowned.

“She’s gone, Mr. Ulric.”

He processed it a bit before he reached the conclusion. So nightmare was indeed real – a memory. That could only mean one thing.

“I’m alive.” Nyx mumbled, feeling the truth weighing him down like gravity.

Both men nodded. The elder spoke again. “Yes, you are.”

Nyx looked down on the shiny floor the two men stood on, not focusing his sights on anything. The realization only made him feel cold again.

“Why am I here?” he asked, as if to question his existence rather than fact that he was in this unfamiliar room.

In a calm and calculated voice, the man explained. “We rescued you. You were one of the survivors chosen for the Kingsglaive program.”

“Kingsglaive program?”

“A military project issued by the king himself.  It is designed to save certain people and reinstate them to have a new purpose.” A pause. “You, Mr. Ulric,” he gestured a hand to him, “are one of our successful cases.”

The man sounded proud to have said that one last bit. Too proud. Somehow, that only quadrupled the questions in Nyx’s mind. He could only blurt out the next thing that was bothering him. “Why am I stuck? Why can’t I move?”

“It’s just for temporary, Mr. Ulric.”

The older man looked back to the other and nodded to signal. The young man walked towards something, a table with small knobs and sliders. He pushed something on it with a finger and, immediately, Nyx felt something. He felt his fingers, his legs. He felt that he turned out to be sitting on a chair or something.

“Try moving your arms and legs. Try standing up.”

He did.  But as soon as he stood up, he caught glimpse of his hands. There was something different. Specifically his right hand. It still looked like a hand, but it’s…. metal… mechanical.

“What happened to me?”

The old man started blabbering again. Words he didn’t understand. Something about metallic prosthesis and cybernetics. It all confused him so much that he felt overwhelmed just by trying to listen. The room was too bright. He didn’t like it too bright. He started walking here and there within the room, hearing a metallic trudge on each step, eyes focused on his two very different hands, trying to make sense of everything.

Everything was strange.

The men followed him nosey bystanders, scribbling and commenting on everything they notied in between more confusing explanations. Nyx only halted when he saw something – someone - on the glassy wall. The young man in the white coat warned the other about his heart rate again.

Flesh seemed to have popped out against metal. He was upright like a human and stationary like a machine. The mixture was glaring. Only an arm, parts of the torso and the head remained of what he was. He saw the shiny bits and pieces that replaced the rest. Screws, wires and castings - all of it perfectly placed. On the skin, he saw the scars that lined like plant roots at the edge of the metal. He saw the face, albeit still human, staring back in horror. There were some scars on it too but smaller and much fainter. On his cheek and the skin surrounding his left eye were odd lines that served as clues for what kind of tinkering they did to him.

It was Nyx’s reflection.

_No, no, it can’t be._

He looked down to himself, his body, and he saw the same thing. He felt his throat start for the momentum. But no scream came out of his mouth, not even an outburst of anger. He just remained still trying to understand all of this

_What the hell happened to me?_

He must’ve looked distraught because the two men started with the information again. Nyx wasn’t listening. He knew what he was.

An abomination, a monster.

“A cybernetic hybrid in technical terms, Mr. Ulric”, the older man corrected after Nyx had said his thoughts out loud. “But for what you are soon to be, we are inclined to call you a glaive.”

Nyx heard them this time. But the technical names didn’t matter. He felt nothing for a while except for the pain of everything that was slowly being replaced by numbness.

Only one thought remained at that moment: they shouldn’t have rescued him.


End file.
